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Sonic has announced the launch of its Qflix licensing and certification program. Through the program, Sonic hopes to provide an industry wide standard allowing for reliable, compatible, and interoperable DVD-on-Demand solutions.

Sonic Solutions (NASDAQ:SNIC - News), the leader in digital media software, today launched Qflix, a licensing and certification program to enable the legal, secure, and reliable burning of video content to DVDs playable on standard and high-definition players. The Qflix technology and intellectual property program empowers for the first time factory, in-store, and in-home systems for on-demand, electronic sell-through of movies and video programs that can be recorded to DVD with Content Scramble System (CSS) encryption. As the industry-approved content protection mechanism used on mass-produced discs and incorporated into all DVD players, CSS has been deemed essential by major content providers for the on-demand digital distribution of premium entertainment. The Qflix brand will appear on compatible drives, media, and video download services as a symbol for consumers looking for legitimate and reliable "purchase, download, and burn" home solutions.

Sonic plans to roll out Qflix Pro in early 2007 with the consumer Qflix program being launched shortly after. If you'd like to read more, Sonic's entire press release can be found here.

Earlier this year, we reported that two Warner Bros. engineers filed a patent for a triple format disc capable of holding Blu-ray, HD DVD and standard DVD content. It appears that the company is putting this technology to use. According to a report by CNET, Warner Bros' new True HD discs will contain content in both HD DVD and Blu-ray formats.

Warner Bros., which helped popularize the DVD more than a decade ago, plans to announce next week a single videodisc that can play films and television programs in both Blu-ray and HD DVD, the rival DVD technologies.

Warner Bros., a division of Time Warner, plans to formally announce the new disc, which it is calling a Total HD disc, at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas on Tuesday.

If you'd like to read more, the entire article can be found here.

Over the last year or so, there have been rumors that LG was working on a combination HD DVD/Blu-ray player. It appears that these rumors were true as the company has announced that they will be unveiling a dual-format player at this year's CES.

LG Electronics(LG), a leader in consumer electronics and mobile communications, announced that it will launch the world's first dual-format high-definition disc player, capable of playing both Blu-ray Disc and HD DVD content.

The unit will be released in the United States in early 2007. Details will be provided at the 2007 International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), held January 8-11 in Las Vegas.

LG expects this technological breakthrough to end the confusion and inconvenience of competing high-definition disc formats for both content producers and consumers.

LG doesn't provide a lot of details about their new player. However, with CES kicking off in a few days, we'll probably hear more. In the mean time, their entire press release can be found here.

With increased demand for CD-R discs, manufacturers have started to raise OEM quotations. The good news is that the retail price of CD-R discs have not followed this trend yet.

Although CMC Magnetics and Ritek have raised their OEM quotations for blank CD-R discs by 8-10% for the first quarter of 2007 and second-tier makers, including Prodisc Technology, Lead Data and Gigastorage, have followed suit by hiking their OEM prices by 5-8%, retail prices in Taiwan currently remain unchanged, according to retail channels.

Retail prices of CD-R discs in Taiwan, in the wake of an OEM price increase, went up slightly by NT$30-50 to NT$499-799 (US$15-25) for a pack of 100 discs in November and December of 2006, the sources indicated. This was mainly due to increased demand during the traditional peak sales period, the sources pointed out. As retail channels and outlets currently have a CD-R disc inventory for four to six weeks, there is no room for them to hike retail prices, the sources noted.

The article also points out that CD-R discs currently being sold at retail are without Veeza licensing. Once Veeza CD-R discs make their way to retail channels, the price will most likely go up. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes.

Fujitsu has announced that they will be demonstrating its new MB86H50 encoder/decoder IC at this year's CES. According to their press release, the MB86H50 is the industry's first large-scale IC for real-time compression and decompression of HD video in H.264 format.

The Fujitsu MB86H50 is the first H.264 format video-processing IC to support the H.264 High Profile, Level 4.0 standard used in next-generation DVDs. It enables high-resolution recording, playback and transmission of high-definition video on audio-visual products such as portable A/V products, hard disk recorders, and home network equipment. The new device has been sampled to selected customers who will provide new products during the first quarter of 2007. The chip sample will become available in March 2007.

If you'd like to read more, Fujitsu's entire press release can be found here.

Silicon Optix sent out a press release earlier today, announcing that its Reon-VX HQV video processor will be featured in Toshiba's high-end HD DVD player, the HD-XA2.

Silicon Optix, the leader in programmable video processors, announced today that its Reon-VX HQV video processor will be featured in Toshiba's new top-of-the-line HD DVD player, the HD-XA2.

"As a reference standard for high-end video, HQV's video processor complements Toshiba's HD-XA2 HD DVD player with the capability to produce amazing detail and clarity from high-definition (HD) material," said Jodi Sally, Vice President of Marketing, Toshiba America Consumer Products Digital A/V Group.

HQV's true 1080i-to-1080p HD deinterlacing delivers the sharpest, most detailed HD images possible by employing per-pixel motion-adaptive algorithms and a sophisticated multidirectional diagonal filter that ensures video free of jaggies. The powerful HQV processing engine also provides per-pixel motion-adaptive noise reduction, detail enhancement, and advanced scaling to deliver premium-quality upconverted SD material.

More information on Silicon Optix's HQV video processor can be found here.

DigiTimes has reported that EVD (Enhanced Versatile Disc) players are not selling well in China due to high prices and limited availability of titles.

Gome, China's largest consumer electronics retail chain, has been actively promoting the sale of players of EVD (enhanced versatile disc), a China-developed DVD format, but sales have been slow due to relatively high prices, according to industry sources in Taiwan.

Although retail prices of EVD players have been lowered from 1,000 yuan (US$128) to below 700 yuan (US$89), they are still much higher than the 200-300 yuan for a DVD player, the sources pointed out. In addition, there is limited availability of EVD titles, which are all produced by studios in China, since EVD has not gained support from Hollywood movie studios, the sources indicated.

With Hollywood putting their support behind Blu-ray and HD-DVD, I'd be very surprised to see any major releases on EVD format. If you'd like to read more, head on over to DigiTimes.

Good news for those planning to run Vista. Slysoft has announced that AnyDVD, CloneDVD, CloneDVD mobile and CloneCD are fully compatible with Windows Vista and Windows Vista 64.

To kick off the new year, Slysoft also has a promotion going where you can save $5 off the cost of a single license. This can also be applied to their bundles, letting you save up to $20. Simply enter the coupon code "vista" at the bottom of the check out form. This promotion ends on January 17th, 2006.

Noctua NC-U6 @ Overclockers Online
MSI S271 Ultra Compact Notebook @ The TechZone
ECS KA3 MVP Extreme ATI Crossfire Xpress 3200 Motherboard @ Futurelooks
Lenovo X41 Tablet PC @ Digit-Life
IWILL ZMAXdp Dual Opteron SFF Barebones System @ Bigbruin.com

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